Patients with advanced chronic kidney disease including ESRD patients may present with a wide spectrum of cutaneous abnormalities, ranging from xerosis to hyperpigmentation to severe deforming necrotizing lesions. Skin problems are not uncommon in this population of patients, with a clinical presentation that can be quite bizarre, mandating a long list of differential diagnostic possibilities, and subsequent rise of a puzzling diagnostic challenge. We describe an ESRD patient who presented with blistering, nonhealing ulcerative lesions with a diagnostic skin biopsy revealing a mixed pattern of linear IgA bullous dermatosis and dermatitis herpetiformis. A clinical remission could be achieved with pulse intravenous steroids followed by oral maintenance in combination with dapsone, with no evidence of recurrence.

SummaryBackground:Hyperkalemia is a potentially life-threatening medical condition; on the other hand pseudohyperkalemia is a benign entity, which should be suspected when serum potassium is elevated without concomitant electrolyte imbalances or remarkable degree of renal dysfunction. Patients seldom have the classical manifestations of hyperkalemia. Failure to recognize this condition causes anxiety among physicians, unnecessary laboratory testing and unwarranted treatments.Case Report:We describe a sixty-year-old woman with persistent hyperkalemia and mean platelet count over a six-month period of 1015×103 cells/cumm. Based on this finding of thrombocytosis an immediate hematological evaluation has detected a myeloproliferative disorder, specifically essential thrombocythemia. Normalizing platelet count was paralleled by resolution of hyperkalemia.Conclusions:Pseudohyperkalemia might be the tip of the iceberg to a major underlying pathological process. Unless a high index of suspicion to diagnose this disorder is maintained it will continue to be remarkably under diagnosed, subjecting patients to numerous unnecessary tests and treatments.

Sjogren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease associated with xerostomia and xerophthalmia. The association of Sjogren’s with hyponatremia has rarely been reported and has been attributed to syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion. Here, we report a case of polydipsia secondary to xerostomia as a cause of chronic hyponatremia in the setting of Sjogren’s syndrome. Analysis of the patient’s medical record, including medication reconciliation and dietary habits, revealed several underlying causes of her recurrent hyponatremia. A thorough review of the patient’s clinical history and good bedside examination may reduce prolonged hospitalizations and improve the quality of life of a hyponatremic population of patients who are predominantly elderly.

Introduction:The clinical syndrome of uremia is a bedside diagnosis which mimics a wide spectrum of other clinical disorders, most commonly thyroid disease. End-stage renal disease (ESRD), as a disorder, frequently alters thyroid hormone metabolism, and this is not significantly normalized by dialysis. Although the thyroid and parathyroid glands are considered independent organs, their anatomical juxtaposition in the neck, as well as sharing a common embryological origin, might play a role in some of the possible association between thyroid and parathyroid disease. It has been demonstrated in experimental animals that changes in the thyroid gland might lead to pathological changes in the parathyroids and vice versa.Case Presentation:An incidence of as high as 25% of hypothyroidism has been reported in patients with ESRD on dialysis. We report a patient with ESRD on maintenance hemodialysis (MHDx) who has had a combination of profound tertiary hyperparathyroidism (HPTH) and severe hypothyroidism.Conclusions:Literature search revealed an increased prevalence of hypothyroidism with secondary HPTH from renal failure. Although there is increased prevalence of hypothyroid state in secondary HPTH from renal failure, the association appears much weaker in primary HPTH and again no conclusive pathological relation has been identified between the two endocrine glands. A closer look and perhaps long-term prospective studies are required in the future to determine this association.